


Someday

by wth_am_i_writing



Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, Forced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Prostitution, Sexual Situations, meiji/taisho style era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-27 17:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17165933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wth_am_i_writing/pseuds/wth_am_i_writing
Summary: Someday they would go. Someday Hyuk would get him out too. He had promises to keep.





	Someday

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on November 23, 2014.
> 
> Original Author’s Note: So I got inspired by a post on butimaginevixx. This was the result~ I kinda imagine this as a time piece, with the setting being similar to how prostitution was set up in Edo/Meiji Japan where there were legal prostitution districts walled off from the rest of the city. Also, the characters are platonically involved, so feelings of deep friendship and brotherhood rather than romantic feelings. This also happens to be my 100th fic posted on WTH! YAY! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!

_“I wanna go to the beach,” Hyuk complained, tossing the dirty wash rag into the suds bucket. “I don’t wanna waste my summer scrubbing floors.”_

_“I’ll take you, someday,” Taekwoon mumbled, not looking up from the silver ornaments he was polishing. “Maybe not this summer, but someday.” Hyuk blinked at Taekwoon for a moment before his words fully sank in._

_“Really?” Hyuk almost shouted, scrambling through the doorway and to Taekwoon’s side. He grabbed the teenager’s long sleeve and tugged at it. “Hyung, you promise you’ll take me?” Taekwoon put down the hairpin he was working on, grabbing Hyuk’s face with his polish stained and chipped fingers, a grin spreading across his lips._

_“Yeah. Someday I’ll get you out of here and take you to the beach,” he promised._

_“Can we build sand castles together?” Taekwoon nodded. “Can we collect seashell together?” Leo nodded again, his grin growing wider. “Can I bury you in the sand?”_

_“Only if you have death wish,” Taekwoon warned, tone still light and the grin on his lips growing even wider._

_“You have to take me. OK? Together. I don’t wanna go without my favorite hyung.”_

_“Yeah, together.”_

-.-.-.-.-

Hyuk stepped out of his car, giving the driver a nod. If everything went according to plan, he’d back out within the hour, but if he ran into trouble he had no idea how long it’d be. Hyuk smoothed down the front of his suit vest, taking a deep breath. It was nerve wracking to be back after so long. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect–things had probably changed quite a bit in the ten years he was gone.

Taking another deep breath, he looked up and around. The gardens in front of the traditional style building were perfectly maintained–no leaves were on the ground despite the fact that it was already mid-autumn and the few deciduous trees all sported golden leaves. They’d remodeled the garden some from what Hyuk remembered, though he’d only glanced at the front garden once when he was being led away to a car, so the details were fuzzy in his mind.

A third deep breath and Hyuk felt like he’d finally gathered the courage to step forward. He followed the stone path to the front entrance, heart rate increasing with each step. The front door opened when Hyuk was about a meter away, startling him. Two men exited the establishment, a short middle aged man in a suit that hurried to cover his face when he noticed Hyuk and a tall, tanned beauty with strikingly bright red hair and thick makeup. The redhead gave Hyuk a knowing smile before latching on to the middle aged man, his purple and blue robes catching in the air and flowing out behind him as he escorted the client to the car drive.

Hyuk squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing thickly. He hadn’t expected to see any of the prostitutes out and about on the premises and it’d shattered the resolve he’d built up–what if–what if– He pushed those thoughts down. He couldn’t let this stop him. He had a promise to fulfill. A fourth deep breath and he forced himself to enter the brothel he used to call home.

“Just a moment, I’ll be right with you,” a man in a suit at a desk just inside the door said, not looking up from the ledger he was writing in. “Juuuust a second,” the man reasserted, continuing to scribble into what Hyuk guessed was the debt diary the owners kept. The man finished within seconds and slammed the book closed, turning to Hyuk with a wide, lopsided smile. “Sorry about that. Are you a new customer?”

“Something like that,” Hyuk answered, barely able to get the words out without stuttering. The man was young, probably only a few years older than Hyuk, but he didn’t recognize him at all. He wasn’t one of the kids that grew up here, though he looked like he could have been–he had the air of a foreigner.

“Oh? Do you mind if I ask how you found out about our establishment? Did another customer refer you here, or?” the man asked, tilting his head to the side.

“My father recommended this place,” Hyuk dodged the question, pulling out his father’s business card and handing it to the man. He looked it over, seemingly satisfied with it. “I’m here to see Taekwoon.”

“Taekwoon? I’m afraid there’s no one here by that name,” the man said, looking up at Hyuk in confusion. Hyuk felt his heart sink. He wasn’t working as one of the kitchen boys, then. Maybe he’d gotten out. “But I’m sure we have a similar boy on our lists that’ll satisfy you.” The man whisked out a book of carefully drawn caricatures and opened it, beginning to leaf through the pages. “If it’s boys and men you like to spend your time with, we have the best selection in town.” Hyuk scanned the pages, looking for anyone that resembled the Taekwoon of his memories.

“S-sharp eyes like a cat’s,” Hyuk stuttered, hoping that whatever men were here didn’t have that trait.

“If you’re looking to play with a kitty,” someone purred from behind Hyuk, a familiar tanned hand reaching around him and snatching the book from the suited man’s hands, “then you should play with me.” The redhead from earlier quickly flipped through the book, stopping on a page with a caricature that was the spitting image of the redhead–but Hyuk could have sworn he saw someone who looked like Taekwoon a few pages earlier. He jerked the book out of the redhead’s hands, flipping back and few pages to a caricature of man with sharp cat-like eyes and full doll-like lips. It looked unmistakably like Taekwoon. Hyuk felt like vomiting.

“Him,” Hyuk said firmly, poking at the picture. “I want to see him.”

“Leo?” the man in the suit and the redhead said at the same time. Was that what Taekwoon was called now?

“Him,” Hyuk asserted.

“I don’t think you’ll find Leo very fun,” the redhead said, snaking his arm across Hyuk’s chest and closing the distance between them until his body was almost pressed against Hyuk’s, something off in his tone. “He’s pretty, but he’s not good at conversation and I’m _much_ better with my hips.”

“Leo sings really well though,” the man in the suit said. “If you like music and don’t mind not talking, he’ll sing for you as long as you want.” The redhead glared at the suited man. “And _you_ have three regulars coming, N,” he said firmly to the redhead.

“I can fit him in,” N huffed.

“I want to see Leo,” Hyuk reasserted, looking at the suited man.

“Good choice,” the man in the suit chimed, lopsided smile coming back full force. “N, get some rest before your next appointment comes.” N pulled away with a pout on his lips. He ran his hand through his hair, looking over at Hyuk with half lidded eyes.

“If you change your mind about Leo, I’m two doors down in the corner,” N purred. The man in the suit reached out to shoo N away but he left voluntarily, his robes flowing out behind him as he went down the hall towards where Hyuk remembered the men’s bath was. No doubt he was going to clean any traces of his last customer off.

-.-.-.-.-

The last time Hyuk had heard from Taekwoon had been five years ago. He’d received a simple letter informing him that his mother had passed away and that everything was more or less the same at the brothel. Hyuk had sent a reply, but never got another letter from Leo again. He wasn’t sure if someone at his adopted father’s had intercepted the letters, if the brothel had intercepted them, or if Taekwoon just chose to never respond. One thing Hyuk knew, though, was that he wanted to see Taekwoon again. He had a promise to keep. He was going to get him out of here.

With payment worked out, the man in suit–who Hyuk had learned was named Ken–escorted Hyuk up to the east wing of the second floor. It was a side of the establishment he hadn’t gone much when he lived here. It was the men’s wing; when he was a boy, if he wasn’t in his mother’s room, he was cleaning or studying with the other kids. Boys didn’t go over to the men’s wing unless they were someone’s attendant or were starting to _work_. Hyuk instinctively balked at the entrance to the east wing, pushing through his nerves with another deep breath. Ken stopped in front of a door near the end of the hall. Hand resting on the handle, he turned to Hyuk with a smile.

“You have two hours,” he chirped before sliding the door open and sticking his head in. Quiet singing filtered out of the room. “Leo, you have a customer!” The singing didn’t pause and there was no response. Ken turned back to Hyuk, his smile a bit more forced this time. “He’s playing hard to get, but he’ll come around with a bit of coaxing,” he explained. Hyuk nodded, swallowing. He stepped past Ken into the room and the door snapped shut behind him, causing him to jump at the unexpectedness of it.

Hyuk looked around the room, not immediately able to peg the location of the singing. There was a large canopied bed set low to the ground, a small chest that Hyuk imagined held various toys and lubricants, and a small piano. The room was otherwise sparsely decorated, the bulk of Leo’s personal possessions resting in another room, hidden away from customers–not that he probably had much beyond what customers gave him and what the brothel bought _for_ him (Hyuk could remember how _little_ he and his mom had growing up, how little all the children had, and it sent sympathetic pangs through him). But for all the lack of places to hide, Leo wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Giving the room another look over, Hyuk noticed that the sliding door to the balcony was cracked open. He was outside. Hyuk took a deep breath to steel his resolve then closed the distance to balcony. He pulled the door open, heart pounding so hard he was sure it’d beat out of his chest.

Leo was there, seated with his legs between support polls on the railing, feet hanging over the edge, arms wrapped around the rung between his legs, back towards the door. He didn’t miss a beat of the song he was singing, one Hyuk recognized from his childhood, a traditional song of the trade, passed down through the brothel for decades. His shoulders were broad but looked so fragile in the layers of thin black and gold robes he was dressed in. His shoulder length jet black hair was pulled back into a careful low ponytail and tied with a golden silk ribbon.

Hyuk cleared his throat, but the man only kept singing. Only when he finished the song did he turn to look back at Hyuk. Full lips painted a delicate pink, sharp eyes winged with heavy black liner, cheeks flushed. Hyuk froze. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how these things normally played out. His mother and everyone else had always tried their hardest to shield him from the going-ons with customers, though he knew vaguely all that went on behind the closed doors. Of course he wasn’t here for _sex_ but–

“You’re young,” Leo observed, voice quiet, light, so _soft_ and _gentle_ that Hyuk knew without a doubt that _this was Taekwoon_. His throat went dry and and he felt like his heart had stopped. Taekwoon slid back, bringing his legs up onto the balcony, not seeming to care that large portions of his legs were exposed to the cold night air. He turned back to Hyuk, but Hyuk hadn’t recovered, his mind still caught on the fact that Taekwoon hadn’t managed to get out, that’d he’d been unfortunate enough to get forced into _this_.

Taekwoon shifted closer, coming to his knees and face carefully blank, yet Hyuk couldn’t make himself _move_ , couldn’t get his mouth to _work_. Taekwoon reached out, fingers spidering across Hyuk’s crotch and gripping him through his pants before Hyuk could register what was happening. The touch was enough to shock Hyuk out of his daze and he jerked back, stumbling to regain his balance in the doorway. Taekwoon looked up at him, canting his head slightly, his expression still blank.

“I-I’m not h-here f-for th-th-that,” Hyuk stuttered, feeling like he wanted to vomit. Taekwoon continued to stare up at him, expression unchanging. Didn’t he recognize Hyuk? Surely his appearance hadn’t changed so much that he was unrecognizable. Puberty had done a lot for him, but he still looked the same–or at least _he_ thought he did. But it’d been ten years, and ten years left a lot more change for a nine year old than a fourteen year old. He stepped forward again, fumbling for words.

“T-Taekwoon-hyung…” Taekwoon blinked, straightening his head and sitting up straighter. “It’s Hyukkie. I-I came back for you.”

“Hyu-kkie…” Taekwoon repeated slowly as if his words had to sink in, his gaze dropping to look at the floor. His behavior was off, making Hyuk wonder if he was drugged. “Hyukkie…”

“Yeah. Hyukkie, Little Hyuk, Sanghyuk,” Hyuk blurted, hoping that at least one of the names triggered his memory. “A client bought my debt ten years ago and took me home to adopt me, remember?” Leo’s gaze snapped up to Hyuk, eyes wide.

“Sanghyuk,” he murmured, breathless. Hyuk felt his knees go weak. He lowered himself down so he was level with Taekwoon.

“Yeah, Sanghyuk.” He reached out for Taekwoon with a shaky hand. “I came back.” Taekwoon’s eyes searched Hyuk’s face.

“Why?” It was a simple question, but the fact that it’d been asked broke Hyuk’s heart. This man was far from the Taekwoon he’d left behind all those years ago. Taekwoon had had a warm smile and a warm heart. He was a little slow to react at times, but he’d also been easily excitable, vibrant and active. This man didn’t seem like any of those things.

“I came to get you out of here,” Hyuk said as firmly as he could manage, clapping his hands on Taekwoon’s shoulders.

“But I can’t leave,” Taekwoon breathed, dropping his gaze down.

“I’ll pay your debt. I have the money. It’s not a problem,” Hyuk insisted, gripping Taekwoon’s shoulders tighter and tilting his head to try and meet his eyes.

“I can’t leave N.” N? The redhead from earlier?

“I’m not leaving you here. Not again. Not after what you did for me before,” Hyuk insisted, growing more panicked. “My dad told me what you did. He told me you said he should adopt me instead. Told me that you said you were too old and too stupid to do him any good and that he should take me instead because I’m smart.”

“I can’t leave him,” Taekwoon repeated.

“You helped me get out of here, now I’m going to help you. I’ll pay your debt today and we’ll leave. I know it’s hard but–” Taekwoon suddenly closed the distance between them, crashing his lips into Hyuk’s and shoving him back with enough force that Hyuk toppled backwards. He shifted until he was straddling Hyuk’s hips, a hardness Hyuk hadn’t even noticed Taekwoon had trapped between them–drugs, definitely drugs, because Hyuk couldn’t think of any other reason Taekwoon would be hard in this situation. Hyuk struggled but Taekwoon was surprisingly strong for as frail as he looked in those robes.

“Even if it were that easy,” Taekwoon breathed as he broke the kiss, “it’s too late for me.” He ground his hips down on Hyuk’s, causing Hyuk’s stomach to churn. He tried to push Taekwoon off again, but Taekwoon only leaned down and caught his lips again, one hand pinning Hyuk’s shoulder down and the other slipping between them to trace the button’s on Hyuk’s vest. Hyuk managed to pry Taekwoon off his lips after what felt like minutes, but by that point, Taekwoon had worked his way down to Hyuk’s crotch and was palming him through his pants. Hyuk wanted to throw him off, hated the way he was starting to react to the touch. This _wasn’t_ what he came for.

“It’s _not_ too late. You can work for my father,” Hyuk insisted, reaching down between their bodies to try and stop Taekwoon’s hand.

“As a concubine?” Leo’s expression hadn’t shifted at all, save for a subtle crease in his brow.

“As a _cook_ ,” Hyuk correct, voice squawking in his horror at Taekwoon’s suggestion. “You liked cooking, right?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Then we’ll get you lessons,” Hyuk pressed, relieved when he finally managed to get Taekwoon’s hand away from his hardening erection. “There’s always ways to start fresh. I’ll _help_ you.”

“I can’t leave,” Taewkwoon insisted again.

“You _can_ ,” Hyuk practically yelled, somehow finding the strength in his anger to push Taekwoon off. He scuttled back into the room, putting a bit of distance between them in hopes of cooling down. Taekwoon just stared at Hyuk, expression still solidly unmoving.

“I can’t leave N,” he stated again, firmly.

“ _Why not?_ ” Hyuk’s voice broke in his exasperation. From the way the redhead had acted earlier, Hyuk saw no reason for Taekwoon to be loyal to him, couldn’t understand why _anyone_ would choose to stay when there was an easy way out.

“He protects me,” Taekwoon explained. “He steals away my problem customers and helps take care of me when I’m injured or sick.” Hyuk swallowed, N’s behavior from earlier striking him in a new light. N had been trying to protect Taekwoon from getting more customers. “I owe him too much.”

“Don’t you think he’d want you to get out if you can?”

“I’m not leaving him,” Taekwoon insisted.

“Then what if I buy him too?” Hyuk suggested, turning desperate. Taekwoon’s expression finally broke, eyes widening.

“It’s too expensive–”

“I’ll do it. If you won’t leave without him, I’ll buy him too,” Hyuk cut him off, desperate to get Taekwoon to agree. “I’m not leaving you here. You _promised_ that you’d take me to the beach and if that means I have to buy N to make that happen, then I’ll do it, even if I have to beg my father for the money.”

Taekwoon averted his eyes, dropping his gaze to the floor. He didn’t speak or move for several moments. When he opened his mouth next, he started to sing, the song sad, about losing a loved one. Hyuk remembered it clearly, the way his mother had sung it when she was sad. Hyuk struck the floor in his frustration, causing Taekwoon to flinch and falter in his singing. He pushed himself up, clenching his fists as he looked down at Taekwoon. He’d march right down stairs and ask Ken about buying Taekwoon and N, and if he didn’t have enough money to cover it, then he’d go home to beg his dad and return tomorrow.

“I promise, I’ll get you both out. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then soon. I promise.” With that, Hyuk turned on his heel and stormed out of the room to negotiate with Ken, Taekwoon’s only parting words in the form of the song.


End file.
